Let It Rage On
by BadassCompany
Summary: "Since I lay a hand on you in hell, since I saved you and felt your soul - I have known. Not what to call it, but I have known. Because you told me so. Not in the things you said, but in the ones you left unspoken. Not in the things you did, but in the way you did them. In the way you can't look away from me." Castiel asks Dean for one thing - the truth.


This is a little something I wrote a while ago and just remembered to post. It's just a one-shot, but I thought y'all might like to read it. It's my take on just one way Destiel could become canon, because come on, as Cas learns more about human things, he's going to realize his and Dean's relationship ain't exactly platonic.

He sat next to me, face streaked with ash and dirt, green jacket stained with blood. We were on the ground, leaning against his car. It was a nice car, I thought absentmindedly. Elegant. The sky was dark, and he chugged from a beer. I reached out and touched his cheek, watching the clawmarks disappear. One of them left a faint scar - sometimes, I couldn't heal scars.

It was a few moments later when I realize my hand was still on his cheek, and that I was staring at him. He looked back at me, and his expression was mercifully blank for a while. There was a question in his gaze, but I didn't know the correct answer. His eyes were green, so very green. I had gotten lost in them so many times. I didn't move, didn't dare even breathe. Anything could upset this fragile balance, this fragment of time in the course of history which seemed to me more sublime than all the rest put together. I was touching him, he was letting himself be touched; it was simple and human and I did not wish for it to stop.

It did, though. Eventually, he blinked and said, "Uh, Cas?"

"Yes, Dean." I frowned. I moved my hand away, and cold sparks of loss ran up my wrist. It was then that it hit me, what this was. It could be named, I thought with relief. Knowing a thing's true name gave you power over it. Love. "Oh," I breathed quietly. This human thing, that somehow I felt for him despite it contradicting my very nature, this love; it was not a pleasant thing, exactly. It reared up inside me, making my heart pound and my breath become short. I wanted to shout. There may as well have been a thunderstorm inside my chest, pouring, pouring down.

He turned away, and didn't say anything. I sensed that the moment was slipping away into that magical place Dean likes to keep things he can't think about - denial. I didn't want that. I could let this be forgotten, and have everything go back to as normal as it had ever been, or I could succumb to this magnetic force between us, could say what hit me like a lightning flash.

"You love me." I breathed. It wasn't what I'd meant to say, exactly, but it was just as inexorably true, pulling itself out from between my lips.

Still, he said nothing, only stared down at the beer bottle in his hands, peeling the red label off with his thumbnail.

I kept the silence with him. There was one moment when I thought I had been wrong. Maybe I had completely and utterly misunderstood. Then my certainty came flooding back. Dean Winchester, the righteous man, the one who taught me about free will - he loved me, even if it was clear as an overcast day.

"Don't," he said eventually, through gritted teeth. Still, he did not seem to be able to bear to look at me.

"Why?" I asked, anger hot in my voice. "Why, Dean?!"

"Because you don't - you can't... You just can't." He said bitterly.

"Oh, really?" I stood, brushing my trench coat off furiously. "Let me tell you something, Dean Winchester. Since I lay a hand on you in hell, since I saved you and felt your soul - I have known. Not what to call it, but I have known. Because you told me so. Not in the things you said, but in the ones you left unspoken. Not in the things you did, but in the way you did them. In the way you can't look away from me. When I was unknown to you, when we have been enemies and when we are friends - this - this bond, it's _there._ This human form is... Confusing. But I know, Dean. The least you could do is have the courtesy to admit the truth."

He stared up at me now, expression unreadable. Except I could always read him, and he was reeling. "Do you love me?"

I laughed, laughed in horrible giddy gasps that seized my whole chest. "Dean," I said breathlessly. "How could I ever have done anything else?"

When I turned back to him, he stood chest to chest with me, mere inches away. "Everyone I love dies," he said slowly, something in his words smoldering.

"So have I," I said, high on righteousness and revelations and our sheer proximity. "And I always come back," I said, more to myself than him.

"So when you stand here and tell me you've always loved me, and when you ask me for the truth, you'd better goddamn know what - " he paused, and ran a hand over his mouth. My gaze lingered over his lips. He searches for the right words, and doesn't seem to find them, but speaks anyway. "You gotta know that we ain't going back from this. That I..." His face contorted, and suddenly he grabbed the lapels of my coat, pulling me to him roughly. I was braced for him to hit me, by force of habit, but instead he kissed me, hot and wanting. I grabbed onto him. Our teeth knocked together and I bruised his shoulder with my grip, but it was everything I had always wanted. His tongue flicked inside my mouth, probing between my lips. It was messy and too rough and I wouldn't take it back for anything.

Afterwards, when we broke apart, chests heaving, I tested, "This doesn't change anything."

He blinked.

"I'll still come and go, and you'll still hunt with Sam, and the world will still attempt to end catastrophically, so why does something so unimportant feel so-"

He cut me off with another kiss, and pulled away, growling, "It matters because now we have something to fight for."

 _Yes._ That was it. And I would fight for him. I'd die for him, a thousand times over. And yet... "Why did you never say?" I asked, anger kindling in my gut once more.

"I did," He said softly.

It was later, when the purr of his engine had long since vanished, and he was on some distant highway, and I stood on the gravel road, straining to see any trace of the kiss we had shared in my surroundings, that it occurred to me. To Dean Winchester, 'I need you' is the same as 'I love you.'

Not in the things you said, but in the ones you left unspoken.

Not in the things you did, but in the way you did them.

In the way you can't look away from me.

In this swirl of feeling, this inexorable, profound bond, I know.

I know, always.

I smile, and the rainstorm inside me rages on. And I let it. Love. What a strange thing


End file.
